The described technology relates generally to a computer system for displaying art and, more particularly, to a system that displays electronic images in a distributed environment.
Prior to the electronic imaging of art, each artwork could only be displayed at one location. If a copy of the artwork was made, then those copies could be displayed at additional locations. With the advent of electronic imaging of art, electronic images could be displayed at multiple locations using multiple computer displays. In addition, the artwork that is displayed at a computer display can be changed automatically at periodic intervals for one artwork to the next. A play list of images can be defined. The computer system that processes the play list displays each image in sequence at periodic intervals. In environments such as museums, a central computer system may control the displaying of a play list at various display devices throughout the museum. The central computer system may maintain a database of the images, and the museum administrator can define play lists and can specify on which display devices are the images of the play lists to be displayed. Such techniques for displaying art may be acceptable for museums, but may be unacceptable in other environments. The techniques may be acceptable in a museum because only the administrator from a central location defines the play lists and specifies the display devices at which the play lists are to be displayed and because each image that can possibly be displayed needs to be stored at the central computer system before it is assigned to a play list.
In other environments, such as a large house or an office building, it may be desirable to allow users to control the display of images from input devices throughout the environment. In addition, it would be desirable if the images that can be assigned to a play list were not limited to those currently stored at the computer system. Finally, it would be desirable if an image is automatically made available for inclusion in play lists when the computer system detects that the image satisfies user-specified criteria and that the bitmap for the image is now accessible and can be downloaded to the computer system.
An art distribution system for distributing art to multiple display devices within an environment is provided. The art distribution system provides a technique for specifying images to be displayed in an environment. The art distribution system provides a hierarchical representation of spaces within the environment. Each space may be further subdivided into subspaces. The art distribution system allows a user to select a space within the hierarchy and then to select an image that is to be displayed at the display devices within the selected space. The art distribution system then displays the selected image within the space including within all subspaces of the selected space. The art distribution system may allow a subsequent assignment of the image to a subspace to override within that subspace the previous selection of an image for the space. The image to be displayed may be part of a play list of images.
The art distribution system also provides for the downloading of images in a background mode from a remote image storage device. The art distribution system provides an image administration module that allows a user to identify images that are to be included in a play list. The image administration module then sends the identity of those images to an art server. Upon receiving the identity of those images, the art server determines whether the bitmaps for those images have already been stored at the art server. If a bitmap for an image has not already been stored, then the art distribution system requests that the image be downloaded from an image storage device to the art server.
The art distribution system also allows a user to specify that image information for accessible images that match specified criteria should be downloaded when those images become accessible. The art distribution system periodically transmits the criteria to image storage devices. The image storage devices identify those images that satisfy the criteria and then provides those identifications to the art distribution system. The art distribution system stores information describing those images so that a user can subsequently select those images to be included in a play list. The bitmap for an image can then be retrieved after the image is assigned to a play list.
The art distribution system also allows for a user to specify the play list that is to be displayed on a display device from a user control point device that may be located in the same room as the display device. The art distribution system provides a user interface at a user control point device to which a user can specify the play list for a certain space. In this way, the users can control the play list assignments from distributed locations.